Sumburgh

Sumburgh Airport from Sumburgh Head

At the very southern tip of Shetland lies Sumburgh Head, a 100m spur of rock carrying a
lighthouse designed by Robert Stevenson and first lit in 1821. This is the first and last that most
visitors see of Shetland if they are travelling by sea.

The coastal scenery here is magnificent, and the views likewise. Beware the oddities of
the irregular shape of the head, however: sheer cliffs bite into it from both sides, and more than
one wall is built on the very edge of a serious precipice.

And if Sumburgh Head is the first you see of Shetland when travelling by sea, Sumburgh
Airport, immediately to the north, is the entry point for most travellers by air. An airport was
first laid out here in the late 1930s to provide air services to a number of Scottish airports.
From 1940 it was an RAF fighter base, only becoming Shetland's main airport in 1953.

The airfield is interestingly laid out, with the longest runway pointing directly at
the heights of Sumburgh Head to the south east and the village of Toab to the north west. The
east-west runway offers easier approach and departure over the sea in both directions. An excellent
idea of the layout is available to all using the airport: the approach road leads you around
three-quarters of the perimeter en route to the impressive terminal, built in 1979.

Flights from Sumburgh connect to most major Scottish and Norwegian airports as well as
to Kirkwall
in Orkney and, occasionally, to Fair Isle.

Just to the south of the airport is the imposing Sumburgh Hotel, built as a mansion in
1867. Close to it is one of Shetland's real gems, Jarlshof.
This is in the care of Historic Environment Scotland and open from April to September. This is most
obviously the site of the remains of the Old House of Sumburgh, built by
Earl Robert Stewart
some time in the 1570s. It was not given the name Jarlshof until a visit by
Sir Walter Scott
in 1814, who based his novel The Pirate here.

But gales blew away surrounding dunes at the end of the 1800s and revealed something
altogether more complex underneath the remains of the Old House. The first settlement here was
built in the stone age; then a broch was built; then an iron age wheelhouse; then a Norse
farmhouse; then a medieval farmhouse; and only later the Old House itself. At the nearby
Old Scatness Broch
a similar site has been under excavation for a decade, and can be visited as work in
progress.

The geography of Sumburgh is an extremely complex series of deeply indented bays,
cliffs, beaches and settlements, all wrapped around the airport. To the north of the airport the
Pool of Virkie almost separates Sumburgh from the rest of Mainland Shetland. To the south two
encroaching bays nearly separate Sumburgh Head from Sumburgh, leaving just enough space for the
runway and the road that runs around it.

Between the airport and Sumburgh Head is Grutness Voe, with the tiny settlement of
Grutness on its south east shore. The pier here is the terminus for the
passenger ferry
to Fair Isle.